Andrew Abbott's Blog

Thursday, 28 February 2013

Cometh the hour cometh the man.

And boy do we need him. Yes Gary Simpson has been named as successor to David Holdsworth at Lincoln City. In an announcement that City fans were probably expecting, given that Simpson seemed to tick all the boxes the board set out in their wish list one presumes all that remained to be done was to agree terms once the former assistant boss expressed an interest in the job.

There is a fair degree of magnanimity in Gary Simpson returning to Sincil Bank particularly after the “Gardening Leave” fiasco that was never fully explained which resulted in the break up of the successful partnership with Keith Alexander and, many fans believe, heralded the decline that would see the club slump to its present desperate state. Simpson was the sacrificial lamb sacked to bring an end to a sorry and mysterious episode in Lincoln City’s history.

It will be a fairly historic feat if Simpson can steady the ship in time to escape relegation, perhaps not on the same scale as way back when the club needed to engineer a series of wins to avoid the drop but nevertheless a stiff test of the new boss who I notice was not making light of the task when interviewed on BBC Radio Lincolnshire.

We can no doubt look forward to a somewhat more uncompromising style of football, backs to the wall belligerence and, hopefully the sort of never say die attitude that was the hallmark of previously happier days, sadly missing from Holdsworth’s team. Strange that as I’m sure that’s exactly what the former boss wanted but was unable to deliver.

The “new” manager will have the benefit of something that Holdsworth never enjoyed, goodwill from the terraces and hopefully the fans will attend home games in larger numbers to take a little pressure off our beleaguered board, they could do with that.

All in all then, difficult though our situation is I can’t but help feel a new optimism. Simpson has experience as a manager and did well at Macclesfield before falling victim to the old problem of having to sell off players but then paid the price for lack of success due to doing so. He will have been toughened up by that experience and will need a thick skin but finally, finally, we have one of our own at the helm, someone we can all unite around as we embark on the Herculean task of getting our football club back to where we all want to be.

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About Me

I began writing with Give Me Football, the official website of the Professional Footballers Association. I have also written for Lincoln City Mad and Lincoln Vitals. I also collaborated on Deranged Ferret, a Lincoln City fanzine. I ride my bike, grow vegetables and bake bread.Occasionally I'm on BBC Radio Lincolnshire Sports Special.
Follow me on twitter @andrewhykeham